Anyway, a year ago today, I started building a scale CG model of Disneyland using the free program Blender. It started out simply enough, with a few backstage show buildings lacking much detail or accuracy, though it was an improvement over an attempt I'd made a year earlier. But over the last twelve months, my ambitions (and knowledge) grew, and at this point, my goal is to model as much of the park as possible, with as much attention to detail and accuracy as is reasonably and enjoyably possible.
I've been posting updates on this project on Micechat, Flickr, and YouTube for some time now. I made one attempt to create a website of my own for the project, but it was too time-consuming and the design didn't work terribly well across different browsers and monitor resolutions. So this blog will—I hope—fill the need that the website and the Micechat thread have attempted to. That is, I intend to post renders and explanations here, allowing others to make comments and suggestions, but also keeping the actual content clearly visible and organized. (Remember to click the images—often, a larger version will be available on Flickr, where I host the images.)
Older renders of the model won't show up in this blog, so please feel free to explore the aforementioned links for all the progress of the project's first year. If you've got questions, I highly recommend the FAQ on the first page of the Micechat thread, but if you're not seeing your question there, fire away. I especially welcome suggestions on how to improve the model, as achieving a reasonably high level of accuracy is important to me.
Last but not least, I greatly appreciate donations—and I don't mean the monetary kind. (Okay, okay...I wouldn't mind that, either.) But the most invaluable form of donation I can receive is a blueprint, an elevation plan, a backstage photo...something that provides me with new, relevant information that I can directly use. If you're willing, I would love to see anything you've got.
Thanks, enjoy...and happy first birthday, Virtual Magic! It's taken one year to go from this...
...to this.
We'll see what the next year brings.
